Beat: I caught one of my students plagiarizing

Coffee · #1 08-01-2007, 03:51 PM

So...I'm teaching a Spanish class this summer, and I assigned a project to my students that they had to write, in either English or Spanish, about a day that bears historical significance in a Spanish-speaking country.

Most of them Dia de los Muertos, one did the day that Hidalgo called for revolution in Mexico(September 16), and a few did Cinco de Mayo.

My best student did a paper on Cinco de Mayo that was verbatim from the Wiki entry on Cinco de Mayo, both the English and Spanish versions. She is far and away the best student in class, with something like a 97 average prior to this little stunt. Now, she has to rewrite it all tonight for a maximum of an 80...and it counts 20% of her final grade.

Brag: All my kids are achievers with few discipline problems.
Beat: Caught my best student plagiarizing her major project
Beat: Now I have to go back and make sure no one else was cheating
Variance: The papers that were worse actually draw less suspicion, because no reliable resource would commit some of the atrocities of grammar I've seen.

NozeCandy · #2 08-01-2007, 03:52 PM

Wait, so you let them write it in either english or spanish, and some kids still chose to write it in spanish? What the hell?

Piece of Cake · #3 08-01-2007, 03:53 PM

You should give all your students a pre-test - make it tough - but if they pass give them the damn A regardless of what they do. College diplomas prove you know something not that you did X amount of busy work. Assignments should be to facilitate learning not to keep your students busy. If your best student already knows the material - don't waste their time reproving it over and over again just so they can get you to sign off on having learned it.

That said - I don't condone cheating, but there's an economics to it - just as is with speeding tickets. Is the time saved worth the amount of trouble for getting caught * times the probability of getting caught?

Oh yeah and this thread is worthless w/o pics ldo.